Chapter 15
Aaron
Sasha Vorontsovsky looks better in makeup than I do. That’s the first thing I notice, and it’s annoying.
We’re standing at center ice in a rink that’s been shut down for us — for a sports drink commercial, of all things — and I’ve got foundation on my face and something called “setting spray” in my hair and I feel like a total idiot.
The stylist spent twenty minutes on me. She tilted my chin up, squinted, brushed powder across my cheekbones, and told me I had great bone structure while I stood there in full hockey gear trying not to make eye contact with the grip guy eating a sandwich six feet away.
Sasha got the same treatment and looks like he rolled out of bed this way.
He’s leaning on his stick at the far blue line, talking to one of the camera guys, laughing at something.
His hair is pushed back but already falling forward — it does that, it always does that, the stylists never win against his hair — and the makeup just makes his eyes bluer and his jaw sharper and the freckles across his nose stand out like they were painted on by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
I look like a hockey player wearing makeup. He looks like a cologne ad.
“Alright, gentlemen.” The director — a guy named Phil in a black fleece who’s been very patient with us for three hours — claps his hands.
“Let’s run it again. Same setup. You’re skating hard toward each other from opposite blue lines.
I need intensity. I need aggression. You’re rivals.
You hate each other. This is war on ice. ”
“War on ice,” Sasha repeats, straight-faced. “Very dramatic. I like it.”
“That’s the energy. Channel that.” Phil points between us. “Kelly, you’re coming from the left. Vorontsovsky, from the right. Full speed, stop hard at center, spray some ice. Stare each other down. Hold it for three seconds. Then we cut to the product shot.”
“Got it,” I say.
We’ve done this eleven times.
The first three takes were fine. Professional. We skated at each other, stopped hard, glared. Phil said good, good, let’s get another angle. The crew repositioned the cameras. The lighting guy adjusted something. We did it again.
Take four is when it went sideways.
I don’t know who broke first. I think it was me.
Sasha came charging in from the right. We’re both in red — plain jerseys, no numbers, no names, something about licensing.
The stylist explained it and I wasn’t listening because Sasha was stretching his neck behind her and the tendons were doing a thing.
He stopped hard. Ice sprayed my shins. He locked eyes with me with this scowl that was so over-the-top, so committed to being menacing, that my mouth twitched.
His eyes caught it.
And then he was gone. Full smile, shoulders shaking, stick across his knees, laughing so hard the sound bounced off the empty stands.
“Cut,” Phil said.
Take five. Same thing. I made it to the stare-down and held it for one full second before Sasha’s left eyebrow went up — just barely, just for me — and I cracked.
Take six. Sasha skated in too fast, sprayed ice all the way up to my chest, and said under his breath, “Oops.” I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper and still couldn’t keep a straight face.
Takes seven through ten were variations of the same disaster.
I’d hold it together and he’d do something — shift his jaw, flare his nostrils, give me a look that was technically a glare but was doing something completely different underneath — and I’d lose it.
Or I’d be the one to twitch first and watch him try to hold on and fail.
We’re professionals. We’re top college hockey players. We have played in front of fifteen thousand people in hostile arenas.
We cannot look at each other without laughing.
“Okay.” Phil rubs his eyes. He’s been very polite about this. The crew has been very polite about this. The sound guy stopped bothering to put his headphones back on four takes ago. “One more time. That’s all I need. One clean take.”
“We can do it,” I say. “I’m sorry. We’ll nail it.”
Sasha nods. Serious face. “Absolutely. Very professional.”
“Don’t look at me when you say that,” I tell him.
“I’m not looking at you.”
“You’re looking at me right now.”
“I’m looking at the Zamboni doors. You happen to be in the way.”
Phil clears his throat. “Gentlemen. Blue lines, please.”
I skate to the left side. Sasha skates to the right. Fifty feet of open ice between us. The lights are hot on my face and the makeup feels thick and the jersey is wrong — too red, too stiff, no name on the back — and none of this is real hockey. None of this is anything except an excuse.
An excuse to be in the same room.
I watch Sasha settle into position across the ice. He rolls his shoulders. Adjusts his gloves. Looks up at me through the gap in his visor and his eyes are steady now. Focused. The same look he gives me before a faceoff when he’s about to win it clean.
My stomach tightens.
Don’t smile. Don’t you dare smile.
“Action!”
I push off hard. The ice is perfect — freshly cut, no ruts, the Zamboni did a full resurface after take eight when Sasha’s stop sent a sheet of snow into the key light.
My edges bite and I build speed and Sasha is coming at me from the other end, fast, his stride long and easy, and we close the distance in seconds.
He stops. I stop. Ice sprays. We lock eyes.
His jaw is set. His nostrils flare. His eyes are hard and locked on mine and he looks exactly like the guy who cross-checked me into the boards during our first scrimmage a year ago.
I hold it.
One second. Two seconds.
His tongue darts out and wets his bottom lip. Fast. Barely visible.
But I see it. And he knows I see it.
I clench my jaw. My gloves tighten on my stick. I hold his eyes and think about the crossbar I hit in the opener. I think about his penalty kill percentage. I think about anything except the fact that he just licked his lip on purpose and my whole body felt it.
“And — cut!” Phil drops his arms. “That’s it. That’s the one. Beautiful. Thank you, guys. That’s a wrap.”
The relief in his voice could fill the arena.
I exhale. Sasha grins — instant, like flipping a switch — and bumps my shoulder with his as the crew starts packing up.
“See?” he says. “Easy.”
“That was take twelve. Phil aged ten years.”
“He got his shot. Everyone is happy.”
The crew moves fast. Cables get coiled, lights get wheeled out, camera rigs get broken down.
A woman with a clipboard thanks us both and says the final cut will be ready in two weeks.
Phil shakes my hand and says it was a pleasure and I can tell he means it the way people mean it when something difficult is finally over.
“Phil, it was great working with you,” I tell him. “Sorry again about — the earlier takes.”
“No need to apologize. The chemistry reads great on camera.” He glances between us. “Even the outtakes. Especially the outtakes, actually. Diego mentioned using some of them for social media, if you’re okay with it.”
“Fine by me,” Sasha says.
Phil nods, gathers his bag, and follows the last of the crew toward the tunnel. The heavy doors open. Close. The echo rings through the empty arena and fades.
Silence.
Just the white glare of the overhead lights. The low buzz of the cooling system under the ice. The rink stretches out around us, huge and empty, and the stands are dark and there’s nobody in the tunnel and nobody in the press box and nobody anywhere.
We’re alone.
The rink feels different when it’s empty.
During games, the noise fills every corner — music, crowd, the PA announcer, coaches yelling, pucks hitting boards.
Even during practice there’s the constant chatter of twenty guys and the sharp blast of a whistle.
But this — this is just the building breathing. The ice settling.
Sasha skates a slow circle at center ice. Lazy crossovers, no effort, his blades barely whispering. He pulls his helmet off and shakes his hair loose and runs his hand through it and it falls exactly the way it always falls and I watch him do this like it’s the first time.
It’s not the first time. I watch him do this every practice. I just usually have seventeen other guys around to pretend I’m looking at instead.
“That was fun,” he says.
“That was three hours of doing the same thing twelve times because you can’t behave.”
He grins. Skates toward me. Stops a stick-length away. He’s still in the red jersey, still wearing makeup, his hair a mess and his cheeks flushed from skating and his eyes bright and I am trying very hard to be annoyed with him.
“You did that on purpose,” I say.
“Did what?”
“Every single take. You were trying to make me laugh.”
“I was performing my role. Intense rival. War on ice.” He puts on Phil’s voice for that last part and I press my lips together hard.
“The eyebrow thing in take five. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“I have very expressive eyebrows. It’s genetic.” Sasha reaches up and pushes his hair back from his face with his bare hand — glove tucked under his arm — and the motion stretches the red jersey tight across his chest.
I look at the ice.
“And take six — you sprayed me on purpose.”
“My edges were sharp. I apologized.”
“You said oops. That’s not an apology. That’s you being a problem.”
“I’m a problem?” He skates a lazy half-circle around me.
Close. His shoulder brushes mine as he passes behind me and the contact runs down my arm and settles low in my stomach.
I can smell him — sweat and cold air and his skin underneath it all.
“We could have been out of here two hours ago if you could control your face, Aaron Kelly.”
“My face is fine. Your face is the issue.”
“My face is the issue.” He stops in front of me. Closer than before. His throat is flushed above the jersey collar. “Tell me more about my face.”
“That’s not what I —”